Queen of Hearts
by xOliviaLansing77x
Summary: What if things had gone differently in the meadow? Just one minute more without the wolves coming to save Bella, and the course of fate was changed forever. Now all the Cullens want is answers. PART 1 of a two-shot I think that's all it will be :


Some called her the Queen of Hearts. Some called her a twisted and ruthless monster. Only the foolish would say it too her face. It was like uttering a death wish. She'd snap your neck and set you afire. She was cruel and evil, but not heartless. She had a heart enough to feel pain. To feel stung by their comments and insults even when she deserved them. She had a heart enough to not kill the kindest and most innocent even if they too were foolish. She had a heart enough not to take human life and to make others do so as well.

She was an enigma to the whole world of vampires. The Queen of Hearts who toyed with men and left them to crumble. The sick woman who was granted too much power to be good when she was immortalized. Filled with rage and anger and most of all despair. She hunted human blood-drinkers, eradicating nearly all of them off the face of the Earth single handed. She seemed to have conflicting actions. Killing mercilessly and cruelly, to save even the most volatile of humans.

There was but few vampires left who had not heard of her. She had overthrown the elite Volturi with out the help of another. She went on to set up her own guard in the very same castle in Volterra. Whispers of this powerful being spread like wildfire. Vampires shivered in fear at her tremendous ability and her warnings to human-drinkers, causing most of them to convert to drinking animals. The Cullens were no different in their reactions other than the fact that they did not have to change their lifestyle. They heard the rumors, the shaky whispers from the Denali Coven. Eleazar claimed he had saw a newborn similar to the current descriptions of the Queen before she had overthrown the Volturi. He said that he had felt not a trace of power causing him to concentrate harder on her. Suddenly, as if she had felt him focusing on her she whipped her head around, narrowed her ruby eyes, and then he suddenly felt a massive wave of extreme power. It felt like what he imagined the aftershocks of the atom bomb had been like. He was stunned.

The Cullens weren't interested in her, however. The grieved for their lost member. Their human. Their Bella. They couldn't be bothered in finding more about this new treacherous Queen. They all spent their days searching and researching for any possible clues or leads as to what had happened to Bella. She had gone missing four years ago. Less than a year after they had left. Charlie had since been dedicating his life to finding her or as he thought in his head, "finding the truth". He had the terrible feeling that if he ever found anything, it would be finding out she was dead.

The Cullens had learned of her disappearance through Alice. After just under a year of forcing herself not to glimpse into her friend's future, she slipped. She was sitting with Jasper in the library at their new house in New Hampshire when she decided enough was enough. She shut her eyes and waited for what she expected to no doubt be images of Bella getting ready for college. Except nothing came. Alice focused and tried until her head hurt. There was nothing but a void of black space when she thought of Bella. Jasper felt her panic immediately. It was then that they called Edward in and they all returned to Forks.

They were not warmly welcomed. People they had never even spoken to glared at them as if it was their fault Bella had disappeared. The Cullens practically agreed with them. When they went to talk to Charlie, he slammed the door in their faces, but not before Edward had read his mind. Through Charlie, Edward learned all the information the town of Forks had to offer because Charlie had all the police records in his head. Edward was just as mystified and anguished as Bella's father. The evidence, which was almost nonexistent, just didn't add up. She had left the house, telling Charlie she was going to study at Jessica's, and never came home. When the police questioned Jessica about it, she said she hadn't even talked to Bella in a while, never mind making plans to study. It was a dead end there. They tried Bella's dwindling group of friends who were all were stunned by the news and offered to help in any way they could. Angela seemed heartbroken by the loss of such a good friend. Then they asked Jacob and Billy but they seemed clueless. The case went cold.

The Cullens had to leave Forks soon though. They weren't aging and people were getting suspicious. It was a great setback not being in Forks where the raw evidence had to be hiding somewhere. They moved to Denali and that was when they first heard of the new Queen. It was there they learned of Laurent's disappearance as well. Edward couldn't help but put him and Bella together. He knew there was a connection somehow. According to Irina, it sounded like he went missing around the exact same time. There was no mistaking it as a coincidence. If Laurent had killed Bella, Edward swore he would tear him to shreds. But his rage was useless. Laurent was gone too. It didn't make sense. Edward and the rest of the Cullens, especially Alice, pressed the Denali's for more. They were relentless with their questions but the Denali's had no helpful information to offer. Edward could see it in their minds that they were just as puzzled with the situation as he was.

Over the next three years, Carlisle went back to work as a doctor, Alice, Jasper, Rosalie, and Emmett went back to school, and Esme returned to interior decorating. Edward never gave up hope. He poured over police statements and documents again, and again. Even after he had memorized them the first time. Every week or so he would run down from Alaska to Forks. He would sneak around at night searching for answers. He had promised Alice he would not stop until he knew what happened and if she was gone, he would be gone too within a matter of hours. She had screamed and sobbed and finally resigned herself to praying that Bella was out there for the sake of her family not falling apart.

Even Rosalie prayed. She never liked Bella, considering her foolish for ever wanting immortality, but she could only imagine some of the scenarios that could have lead to her disappearance. If Rosalie had blood coursing through her veins, it would have run cold at her thoughts. Rosalie never wished bad things for Bella. She just never wished for her to get what she wanted most. Forever.

It had been four years now since the Cullens had originally left Bella. The entire family had sunk into a grey depression. Time was not doing it's job to heal the wounds. But none of them had expected it to. They were vampires and they never forgot. If anything, the passage of time made it worse. The possibility that Bella was alive and well grew less and less each day. Edward grew angry and introverted. More than he had ever been before. He felt he was being punished for all his sins, most of all his lies. His lies to her, the purest of all beings he had ever met.

It was just another day like this in November when Emmett seemed to have a rare moment of deep thought. Edward whipped his head towards his brother, taken aback by his thoughts. _She could be a vampire._


End file.
